Category: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing seems to have picked up steam over the last couple of years and there seems to be more and more products with affiliate options. This is really great for the list builder who doesn’t have a product or service to market yet, because the affiliate products can be used in the sales funnel in lieu of self-produced products.

Affiliate marketing and list building work real well together, if the list builder has relevant products in his or her funnel.

For example – If you offer organic gardening information – the products and services you recommend should be related to this topic. And my suggestion to you is to test as many of these products or services as you can before you heavily promote them.

Now I want to make sure you understand the two sides of the affiliate coin. One side of this coin is where you as a product or service owner find affiliates to market your product or service and when they make a sale you compensate them.

The other side of this coin is where you as the affiliate, market products or services to your email list, on your websites or on other people’s sites. When a sale is made then you make a percentage of the transaction. This is what I am referring to when I mention putting affiliate products in the sales funnel.

When marketing affiliate products and services – make sure you do your homework and research.

You can do what ever you want, it’s your business and as a business owner, it’s your decision as to what products and services you buy and recommend. It’s just that you will be more believable when you recommend a product that you actually use.

I personally find it much easier to recommend products and services that I have tested and used. Over time I have developed a list of affiliate oriented products and services that work for me in my business and recommending them is a pleasure because I know they work and have had success with them.

If you want to know what that list is then check out Dave Recommend’s and see for yourself.

So my recommendation is to be up front and honest about the products and services you promote because long-term is not just about the short sale.

What is affiliate marketing and how does it work? And is it the right online business model for you? These are two questions that I will answer in today’s article.

There are many different ways to make money online and one of them is affiliate marketing. This model has been around for years and basically there are two side to the affiliate coin. One is the affiliate(you), who markets the product or service and second is the merchant or who provides the product or service for you to market.

When marketing as an affiliate you receive commissions when a transaction takes place. The amount of commission can vary depending on the merchant and kind of product or service.

One of the ways of utilizing affiliate products is through building a list of your own and then marketing to your list of subscribers. The biggest benefit here is that instead of you sending the searcher to the merchant’s site directly, they opt-in and subscribe to your site first. This way you maintain the relationship with the subscriber

As an affiliate the merchant will provide you advertising and promotional materials like banner and text link ads that can be used to promote the products or services. You can then use these ads on your websites, in signatures and on other people’s websites to generate traffic to the offer or your subscriber lead capture page.

So how do you the online marketer promote affiliate products and services so you can make commissions on the sales that occur?

1. Find affiliate products and services that are directly related to your niche or business and promote them on your niche based website. You will need to find an affiliate network so be prepared to research and have your sites ready so you can be approved.

2. Promote the affiliate products through content that you write and post on different websites and blogs.

3. Promote the mix of products and services to your list of subscribers in an automated email campaign. This way you can control what is sent to the subscriber and when it is sent.

Hopefully you can see that affiliate marketing can be a workable web-based business model and in some cases be just the right fit for list building online.

For more information on how you can build a list of subscribers – check out The List Building Guide for tips, tactics and strategies.